Readers:

Divorced mothers: what these brave women don’t need

by Rod Smith

Honor courage when you meet it

Divorced mothers are among the bravest people I have ever met. Not only are many fighting financial battles with a former spouse, they are at the same time negotiating with schools, coordinating visits to doctors, ferrying children to and from sports events, strategizing visits for the children with the other parent, and trying to placate a boss and colleagues at work. Simultaneously, many are trying to maintain some form of sanity though attempting to develop the semblance of a social life while having to face a stigma (thankfully it is diminishing in some cultures) about being divorced at all.

What divorced mothers do not need is:
1. Romantic involvement with a needy man – especially one who is in search of a mother but doesn’t know it.
2. Judgment about her parenting, her discipline, or her children’s behavior.
3. Questions about what went wrong in her marriage, or the suggestion (overt or covert) that had she “given” her marriage to God, or been more obedient or submissive, or prayed more, fasted more, tithed more faithfully, her marriage would have survived.
4. To be thought of as an easy target for sex as if it is the one thing she must surely be missing now that her marriage is over.

Well said Rod. A lot of this applies to all women with children, who I eternally admire for their management skills. When my wife had her third child, I took a week off to take over her duties. I still to this day have no idea how she managed to be in three places at the same time. Being a mother must be the most underrated role (by mainly men) that has ever existed, other than that of a divorced mother, which is even much more demanding as you have pointed out. I only wish I had read this in my twenties ….